1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computer systems and, more particularly, to a cache-coherency protocol which provides for a most recently referenced state allowing improvements in cache intervention of data.
2. Description of the Related Art
The basic structure of a conventional multi-processor computer system 10 is shown in FIG. 1. Computer system 10 has several processing units, two of which, 12a and 12b, are depicted, which are connected to various peripheral devices, including input/output (I/O) devices 14 (such as a display monitor, keyboard, graphical pointer (mouse), and a permanent storage device (hard disk)), memory device 16 (such as random-access memory or RAM) that is used by the processing units to carry out program instructions, and firmware 18 whose primary purpose is to seek out and load an operating system from one of the peripherals (usually the permanent memory device) whenever the computer is first turned on. Processing units 12a and 12b communicate with the peripheral devices by various means, including a generalized interconnect or bus 20, or direct-memory-access channels (not shown). Computer system 10 may have many additional components which are not shown, such as serial and parallel ports for connection to, e.g., modems or printers. Those skilled in the art will further appreciate that there are other components that might be used in conjunction with those shown in the block diagram of FIG. 1; for example, a display adapter might be used to control a video display monitor, a memory controller can be used to access memory 16, etc. The computer can also have more than two processing units.
In a symmetric multi-processor (SMP) computer, all of the processing units are generally identical; that is, they all use a common set or subset of instructions and protocols to operate and generally have the same architecture. A typical architecture is shown in FIG. 1. A processing unit includes a processor core 22 having a plurality of registers and execution units, which carry out program instructions in order to operate the computer. An exemplary processing unit includes the PowerPC.TM. processor marketed by International Business Machines Corporation. The processing unit can also have one or more caches, such as an instruction cache 24 and a data cache 26, which are implemented using high-speed memory devices. Caches are commonly used to temporarily store values that might be repeatedly accessed by a processor, in order to speed up processing by avoiding the longer step of loading the values from memory 16. These caches are referred to as "on-board" when they are integrally packaged with the processor core on a single integrated chip 28. Each cache is associated with a cache controller (not shown) that manages the transfer of data between the processor core and the cache memory.
A processing unit can include additional caches, such as cache 30, which is referred to as a level 2 (L2) cache since it supports the on-board (level 1) caches 24 and 26. In other words, cache 30 acts as an intermediary between memory 16 and the on-board caches, and can store a much larger amount of information (instructions and data) than the on-board caches can, but at a longer access penalty. For example, cache 30 may be a chip having a storage capacity of 256 or 512 kilobytes, while the processor may be an IBM PowerPC.TM. 604-series processor having on-board caches with 64 kilobytes of total storage. Cache 30 is connected to bus 20, and all loading of information from memory 16 into processor core 22 must come through cache 30. Although FIG. 1 depicts only a two-level cache hierarchy, multi-level cache hierarchies can be provided where there are many levels (L3, L4, etc.) of serially connected caches.
In an SMP computer, it is important to provide a coherent memory system, that is, to cause writes to each individual memory location to be serialized in some order for all processors. For example, assume a location in memory is modified by a sequence of write operations to take on the values: 1, 2, 3, 4. In a cache-coherent system, all processors will observe the writes to a given location to take place in the order shown. However, it is possible for a processing element to miss a write to the memory location. A given processing element reading the memory location could see the sequence 1, 3, 4, missing the update to the value 2. A system that implements these properties is said to be "coherent." Virtually all coherency protocols operate only to the granularity of the size of a cache block. That is to say, the coherency protocol controls the movement of and write permissions for data on a cache block basis and not separately for each individual memory location.
There are a number of protocols and techniques for achieving cache coherence that are known to those skilled in the art. At the heart of all these mechanisms for maintaining coherency is the requirement that the protocols allow only one processor to have a "permission" that allows a write to a given memory location (cache block) at any given point in time. As a consequence of this requirement, whenever a processing element attempts to write to a memory location, it must first inform all other processing elements of its desire to write the location and receive permission from all other processing elements to carry out the write. The key issue is that all other processors in the system must be informed of the write by the initiating processor before the write occurs. Furthermore, if a block is present in the L1 cache of a given processing unit, it is also present in the L2 and L3 caches of that processing unit. This property is known as inclusion and is well-known to those skilled in the art. Henceforth, it is assumed that the principle of inclusion applies to the caches related to the present invention.
To implement cache coherency in a system, the processors communicate over a common generalized interconnect (i.e., bus 20). The processors pass messages over the interconnect indicating their desire to read or write memory locations. When an operation is placed on the interconnect, all of the other processors "snoop" (monitor) this operation and decide if the state of their caches can allow the requested operation to proceed and, if so, under what conditions. There are several bus transactions that require snooping and follow-up action to honor the bus transactions and maintain memory coherency. The snooping operation is triggered by the receipt of a qualified snoop request, generated by the assertion of certain bus signals.
This communication is necessary because, in systems with caches, the most recent valid copy of a given block of memory may have moved from the system memory 16 to one or more of the caches in the system (as mentioned above). If a processor (say 12a) attempts to access a memory location not present within its cache hierarchy, the correct version of the block, which contains the actual (current) value for the memory location, may either be in the system memory 16 or in one of more of the caches in another processing unit, e.g. processing unit 12b. If the correct version is in one or more of the other caches in the system, it is necessary to obtain the correct value from the cache(s) in the system instead of system memory.
For example, consider a processor, say 12a, attempting to read a location in memory. It first polls its own L1 cache (24 or 26). If the block is not present in the L1 cache, the request is forwarded to the L2 cache (30). If the block is not present in the L2 cache, the request is forwarded on to lower cache levels, e.g., the L3 cache. If the block is not present in the lower-level caches, the request is then presented on the generalized interconnect (20) to be serviced. Once an operation has been placed on the generalized interconnect, all other lower-level caches snoop the operation and determine if the block is present in their caches. If a given processing unit has the block of data requested by the processing unit in its L1 cache, and that data is modified, by the principle of inclusion the L2 cache and any lower-level caches also have copies of the block (however, their copies are stale, since the copy in the processor's cache is modified). Therefore, when the lowest-level cache (e.g., L3) of the processing unit snoops the read operation, it will determine that the block requested is present and modified in a higher-level cache. When this occurs, the L3 cache places a message on the generalized interconnect informing the processing unit that it must "retry" its operation again at a later time, because the actual value of the memory location is in the L1 cache at the top of the memory hierarchy and must be retrieved to make it available to service the read request of the initiating processing unit.
Once the request from an initiating processing unit has been retried, the L3 cache begins a process to retrieve the modified data from the L1 cache and make it available at the L3 cache, main memory or both, depending on the exact details of the implementation which are not specifically relevant to this invention. To retrieve the block from the higher-level caches, the L3 cache sends messages through the inter-cache connections to the higher-level caches, requesting that the block be retrieved. These messages propagate up the processing unit hierarchy until they reach the L1 cache and cause the block to be moved down the hierarchy to the lowest level (L3 or main memory) to be able to service the request from the initiating processing unit.
The initiating processing unit eventually retries the read request on the generalized interconnect. At this point, however, the modified data has been retrieved from the L1 cache of a processing unit and the read request from the initiating processor will be satisfied. The scenario just described is commonly referred to as a "snoop push." A read request is snooped on the generalized interconnect which causes the processing unit to "push" the block to the bottom of the hierarchy to satisfy the read request made by the initiating processing unit.
The key point to note is that when a processor wishes to read or write a block, it must communicate that desire with the other processing units in the system in order to maintain cache coherence. To achieve this, the cache-coherence protocol associates with each block in each level of the cache hierarchy, a status indicator indicating the current "state" of the block. The state information is used to allow certain optimizations in the coherency protocol that reduce message traffic on the generalized interconnect and the inter-cache connections. As one example of this mechanism, when a processing unit executes a read, it receives a message indicating whether or not the read must be retired later. If the read operation is not retried, the message usually also includes information allowing the processing unit to determine if any other processing unit also has a still-active copy of the block (this is accomplished by having the other lowest-level caches give a "shared" or "not shared" indication for any read they do not retry). Therefore, a processing unit can determine whether any other processor in the system has a copy of the block. If no other processing unit has an active copy of the block, the reading processing unit marks the state of the block as "exclusive." If a block is marked exclusive, it is permissible to allow the processing unit to later write the block without first communicating with other processing units in the system because no other processing unit has a copy of the block. Therefore, it is possible for a processor to read or write a location without first communicating this intention onto the interconnection, but only where the coherency protocol has ensured that no other processor has an interest in the block.
The foregoing cache-coherency technique is implemented in a specific protocol referred to as "MESI," and illustrated in FIG. 2. In this protocol, a cache block can be in one of four states, "M" (Modified), "E" (Exclusive), "S" (Shared) or "I" (Invalid). Under the MESI protocol, each cache entry (e.g., a 32-byte sector) has two additional bits which indicate the state of the entry, out of the four possible states. Depending upon the initial state of the entry and the type of access sought by the requesting processor, the state may be changed, and a particular state is set for the entry in the requesting processor's cache. For example, when a sector is in the Modified state, the addressed sector is valid only in the cache having the modified sector, and the modified data has not been written back to system memory. When a sector is Exclusive, it is present only in the noted sector, and is consistent with system memory. If a sector is Shared, it is valid in that cache and in at least one other cache, all of the shared sectors being consistent with system memory. Finally, when a sector is Invalid, it indicates that the addressed sector is not resident in the cache. As seen in FIG. 2, if a sector is in any of the Modified, Shared or Invalid states, it can move between the states depending upon the particular bus transaction. While a sector in an Exclusive state can move to any other state, a sector can only become Exclusive if it is first Invalid.
A further improvement in accessing cache blocks can be achieved using the aforementioned cache-coherency protocol. This improvement, referred to as "intervention," allows a cache having control over a memory block to provide the data for that block directly to another cache requesting the data (for a read-type operation), in other words, bypassing the need to write the data to system memory and then have the requesting processor read it back again from memory. Intervention can only be performed by a cache having the data in a block whose state is Modified or Exclusive. In both of these states, there is only one cache block that has a valid copy of the data, so it is a simple matter to source the data over the bus 20 without the necessity of first writing it to system memory. The intervention procedure thus speeds up processing by avoiding the longer process of writing to and reading from system memory (which actually involves three bus operations and two data operations). This procedure not only results in better latency, but also increased usable bus bandwidth.
Prior-art protocols do not provide for intervention when data is held in Shared states by two or more caches because, generally, it is difficult to determine which cache would source the data. Intervention with Shared cache states can be provided if a system collects all of the Shared responses and then picks (e.g., arbitrarily) which cache should source the data, but this approach is generally no faster than getting the data from memory, and so it provides little benefit. It would, therefore, be desirable to devise a method of maintaining cache coherency which allowed for efficient intervention of data with Shared states.